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New Hampshire voting

Wed, 02/10/2016 - 00:38 — mark donham

The polls haven't closed in New Hampshire, but both NBC and PBS are reporting about "exit" polls, (are those the same ones that didn't work on John Kerry's presidential non-election?) which technically don't give the election results, but, when you add them all up, you can have a good sense about a trend particularly when one is pretty strong.

So reporters are reporting that based on these exit polls, the trend seems strongly toward Mr. Sanders in the democrat primary. I question whether they should be reporting this before the polls close. Anything to get an edge and have something to talk about it. Not that I question it out of any sympathy for Ms. Clinton. She should be strapped in pretty good for the impact because it has been telegraphed that it could be a big loss for her in New Hampshire. Still, regardless of how protected you try to be, it will be felt. Move on. But what do you do about the insurgent campaign that Sanders is running. He is striking a nerve and has street cred on it, and Clinton can't buy, edit, or manufacture that.

Some of the strength of the support for Sanders is favorite son feelings. But I don't think that is the main thing. I think it is what Joe Biden said - that Sanders has been talking about income inequality for most of his career. Clinton has also been taking on issues of injustice for decades, but it can't be couched as neatly as fighting for income inequality that Sanders owns.

But there's more than that. It is that the income inequality is so obviously wrong, and there are too many people in the world who have less capabilities than people who are making much less. The face of that to midwesterners and other rural communities is Shyster wheeler dealers that will do anything to make as much money as they can, regardless of who gets hurt. It's the Wall Street, hedge fund, private equity group kind of guy that even when they make big mistakes and hurt lots of people, there is no accountability. And people from lower incomes get the full force of law enforcement and prosecution for much less "crimes."

All of those things add into the frustration toward a system that continues to allow what seem so obvious as not right as allowing a very few people to make absurd amounts of money while many capable people have nly enough to survive, if that. For better or worse, the Clintons have become more associated with big money interests than they are with low income people. That perception may not be totally fair, but I feel it is real. Sanders doesn't carry that baggage.

When you add to that, Ms. Clinton's vote to support the Iraq war, it doesn't add up well in a state of independents like New Hampshire. If what these reporters are suggesting is true, Clinton is about to get trounced. Ouch. Nevertheless, I think she staves off the Bern in a long campaign, nationally where Sanders collects a lot of delegates along the way, but Clinton, with the help of superdelegates, maintains a slim majority. Clinton, needing Sanders to keep the whole things from looking manipulated, agrees to platform ositions from Sanders in the party platform at the convention in return for his endorsement. Sanders will get more or less depending on how many delegates he gets, but recent trends suggestion it will be more.

I guess it shouldn't be easy for the first female president. She has to prove she has the metal to stand the fire. And she is getting it. Should she lose again to an insurgent candidate I would think that would be hard to take. It's hard to imagine, especially with a socialist...um...I mean democratic socialist, which, I realize there is a HUGE difference, that it could happen to Ms. Clinton again. But it could, although I don't know if Mr. Sanders has the time to win nationally. It will all happen very quickly, and Sanders doesn't not have the name recognition across the nation as Clinton. Hard job to turn that mechanism off in just a couple months.